In a rather slanted piece, the New York Times’ Jeremy W. Peters writes about disclosure controversy swirling around Greta Van Susteren regarding her husband’s connection to Herman Cain.
The friendship between Mr. Cain and Ms. Van Susteren’s husband, John Coale, came to light after NY1 reported that Mr. Coale had called Cindy Adams, The New York Post gossip columnist, to cancel a dinner with Mr. Cain and media luminaries like Barbara Walters and Matt Lauer.
Ms. Van Susteren would not comment on the record on Wednesday about whether she had ever disclosed to Fox executives her husband’s friendship with Mr. Cain. And she did not answer another question, posed to her in an e-mail from The New York Times, about whether anyone at Fox News had pressed her to mention the friendship on her 10 p.m. Fox News Channel program.
“would not comment on the record”…sneaky twisting of her show’s own tagline…and one that probably should have been edited out. And this is the first time I can recall seeing someone from a big MSM paper call Van Susteren a “right leaning host” and lumping her in the same camp as O’Reilly and Hannity.
Ok, let’s cut to the chase…Washington D.C. based talent, be they reporters, anchors, or show hosts, are perpetually faced with disclosure issue scenarios. Anyone there who isn’t is someone who must surely live their life like a hermit. It goes with the territory. My belief is that all personal ties should be disclosed when the person in question is interviewing someone they know personally. Let the viewer decide whether the connections are significant or not. But do I think they’re obligated to disclose all ties? Um, no. It should be up to the host and the network to evaluate these entanglements on a case by case basis. What drives me nuts is networks don’t disclose what those internal metrics are so we never know whether they are being evenly applied.
